by Glen Cook
The wood peeled away while the shaft was in the air. The flechettes hit the Windwalker in a broad spray.
The shaft from the other engine was of the same type.
Thousands of boils and pustules appeared on the skin of the great toad. The god heaved violently, most of its mass clearing the stained and slimy shingle. A scream both physical and psychic froze the assailants. For a half minute Heris was capable of no rational thought at all.
Shaking, she pulled herself together. Downslope, the Windwalker desperately tried to do the same. Its violent heave had caused it to slide. Its leg and tail part were in the water. A sort of gray, foul mist puffed off the god where the darts had gone in.
The scream seemed to have no end.
Working like they were doing so in the face of a high wind and doubled gravity, the Aelen Kofer readied the engine again.
Heris shouted down, “One of you guys want to take a turn?”
Copper bellowed, “We can’t do that. We’re Aelen Kofer. We aren’t allowed. We only make things and explain their use.”
Heris thought that claim emanated from the stern quarters of a male bovine. Aelen Kofer could and did act when they thought they could get away with it. Whatever it might be.
Copper was hedging bets. Lawyering. Making sure he could disclaim responsibility somewhat. Despite having brought a full ration of Aelen Kofer ingenuity to the murder at hand.
Thenceforth the fight was an execution. The Windwalker was too weak. It could do nothing but take the punishment and hope to survive. And hope its enemies could not bring anything more to bear before winter came.
Winter would come. Winter would bring salvation. This coming winter would be the most ferocious in an epoch. This world would not emerge from its next winter.
“Let’s slow down,” Heris said. “Let’s let each shaft finish working before we launch another.”
The mist puffs coming off the Windwalker had become streamers. They built a cloud around the monster. Heris wanted that to clear.
She got down to stretch her legs. “Isn’t that something?” she asked the ascendant. She glanced at the sun. The day was getting on. The light might not last long enough to finish this.
“I don’t feel well,” Asgrimmur said.
“What?”
“I’m sick. I haven’t been sick like this since I suffered through that minor version of what the Windwalker is going through now.”
“But it isn’t happening to you.”
“No. In theory, it’s not. Except to those parts of me connected to the Night. The entire Night is feeling this. It’s confused, frightened, angry, and disoriented. And fully aware that something unprecedented is happening.”
“Your Old Ones, too?”
“Especially them.”
“The other Old Ones?”
“I don’t think so. They’re in a place outside the Nine Worlds and only the Nine Worlds are connected to the Night.”
“Your Old Ones. The rest of the Night. They can’t possibly feel sorry for this thing.”
“The Banished, not so much. The Walker … It isn’t sympathy. It’s fear and all the things the rest of the Night feels. And … No. That doesn’t make sense. Does it? A kind of guilt, despair, then another kind of guilt?”
“Who said the man is confused? That’s clear as a smack in the teeth. Time for me to take a couple more shots.” The steam had cleared off the Windwalker. The mottled, festering remnants of the toad did not retain a third of the mass that had been there before the attack began.
Her first shot set the surface of the Windwalker to bubbling like hot tar. Heris heard the bubbles bursting. Each vented a fat puff of steam. The toad soon disappeared inside another cloud.
Heris leaned back.
The ascendant climbed up and hung on to the side of her seat. “I’ve made sense of what the Walker is feeling. He sees all this as his fault. He now thinks you’ll actually kill the Windwalker. Being selfish, as gods are, he doesn’t care what that means for the Night. He does think that it means you won’t find it necessary to release the other Old Ones.”
“That wouldn’t hurt my feelings. Not having to try. Be pretty damned anticlimactic after all the work we’ve done to make it happen, though.”
“Yes. Just so.”
“What does that mean?”
“That the Walker is sure you won’t let the work go to waste. That, since you don’t need them now, you’ll bring them out to destroy them.”
Heris thought about that. And found it a not unappealing plan. But entirely unnecessary. The Old Ones could be kept forever harmless right where they were.
Asgrimmur said, “The Walker now believes the Old Ones made a huge miscalculation when they conscripted us Andorayans to use against a man who accidentally discovered a way to murder the Instrumentalities of the Night. But didn’t know that till the Night itself made him understand.”
“Yeah. That was a real screwup.”
“And now facts hitherto unnoticed have crept into the Walker’s awareness. It’s possible that the Godslayer himself was misidentified.”
“What?” Heris eased a hand toward one of her knives.
“You were a slave when the Esther’s Wood thing happened. In the Holy Lands. Less than twenty miles away. An imperceptible separation seen from the Great Sky Fortress, centuries earlier. The Walker thinks distance, time, and coincidence might have resulted in picking the wrong Godslayer.”
“Horse hockey.” And muttered something about keeping it in the family.
“You’re in the process of killing what, once upon a time, was the most terrible Instrumentality of all. A weakened Kharoulke but the real thing, not some ghost of a god raised up by a lunatic sorcerer with a lust for immortality. And you have it in your power to extinguish an entire pantheon and one of the Nine Worlds.”
“More horse puckey, Asgrimmur. Get down. Time for another shot.”
Shafts from both engines struck the Windwalker. God flesh surged violently but did not come down in the water this time.
The violence continued, as though the god’s back had been broken.
Asgrimmur swore. “Oh, shit! Get down from there, Heris.”
Copper snarled, “Down, woman! Down!” He and his people started crawling under the nearest chunks of basalt.
Heris felt the imminence. She dropped between skittering rocks, turned an ankle, made cover with an instant to spare.
A blinding flash. A roar that overshadowed all the firepowder roars Heris ever heard. The earth shook, rattled, and bucked. Scree slipped. Boulders went bounding or sliding downslope. Somebody shrieked as his hiding place fell in on him. For an instant the air was too hot to breathe. Then a ferocious wind came rushing downhill.
A massive fireball climbed toward and tore into the low overcast.
“Well,” Heris muttered. “This is what Piper saw when the god worm died. Damn! Good thing the old asshole was worn down to where he didn’t have anything left.”
She could not hear herself. Nor anything else. Just as well. Her companions did not need to follow her ramblings.
She did review what Piper had said about the incident with the god worm.
An egg. There should be some kind of egg. Piper had been collecting those since he started killing Instrumentalities. Better find out if there was one of those here.
Asgrimmur and Copper both yelled and waved as she headed downhill. She did not have to pretend she did not hear them.
The explosion had not consumed the Instrumentality completely. Slime and chunks of rotten “lard” were everywhere, including on the water of the Ormo Strait. The stench was brutal. But there was no more sense of a divine presence. The opposite was true. There was a vacuum, an impression that something important had gone missing. Heris felt an abiding sorrow that was not at all natural.
She spied the egg. It was bigger than any Piper had described. It shed a strong inner light and so much heat that she had to stop fifteen feet away. The light kept fading.
Copper joined her, as did Asgrimmur. The dwarf squatted. The ascendant stood with feet widespread, his hand behind him. Both stared at the egg. Heris said, “We can go as soon as that cools down.”
Asgrimmur asked, “What do you want with it?”
“Two souls. That’s the one the Windwalker brought to this world. I want it under control. I want it taken to where it can be destroyed.”
“You’d probably be safer just leaving it.”
“Maybe. But I’m not going to do that. Copper. Have your guys started breaking down? Though it’s a crime to take those beautiful engines apart.”
Distracted, Copper shrugged. “They aren’t being destroyed, just disassembled. They’ll be stored till they’re needed again. And they will be. That’s the nature of these things.”
Heris thought Piper’s falcons were more likely to figure in future godly executions.
Asgrimmur took hold of Copper’s arm. “I’m not going back the way we came. I wouldn’t survive. I’ll walk back beside my new best friend. Unless he wants to stay here and set up housekeeping. It’ll be fun, come winter. I can teach him to ski.”
Heris saw Copper shudder. The dwarf was angry inside. But he did not refuse.
She knew she would get nowhere making the same suggestion.
The dwarf could not refuse. He was Aelen Kofer. Asgrimmur had the ghost of the All-Father inside him. Copper had no option.
Proof that every dwarf had to be out of the Realm of the Gods before any move involving trapped deities.
Heris said, “I understand. Copper. Will you make your journey on foot?”
The dwarf thought before answering, seeing what he might give away. “Yes. It’s a one-day journey. Goat carts will move the engine parts.”
“Great. You can do me a favor, then. Take this egg to the Realm of the Gods. It occurs to me that it wouldn’t be smart to be carrying it when I cut my chord across the Night.”
She saw no obvious reaction from Asgrimmur, though he had offered a gentle caution. Copper did respond, but only in the manner of someone who fancied himself serially victimized. He indulged in woe-is-me sighs.
***
It was always high noon in the Realm of the Gods so it did not matter that it was after dark when the egg finally cooled enough to be wrapped in leather ammo slings and moved over, whatever secret way the dwarves used, to a goat cart in the Aelen Kofer world. A moment afterward Heris turned sideways and transitioned to the Realm of the Gods.
Cloven Februaren had not yet returned. She was exhausted, physically and emotionally. She vanished into her local hole-up without announcing her return.
***
The Ninth Unknown and the Bastard were in the Aelen Kofer tavern with Iron Eyes when Heris, refreshed, wandered in looking for something to eat. The dwarf and the old man started barking questions.
“Copper is fine. He’s on his way. Asgrimmur is with him. He wouldn’t have survived another transition. If you’ve got the Night in you, you can get hung up out there. Forever. Double Great. We’re going to need to do some rethinking.”
“Rethinking? What do you mean? Rethinking of what?”
“What we’re going to do up there.” She jerked a thumb in the direction of the Great Sky Fortress.
“Why?” His eyes narrowed. He smelled something.
Heris smelled food. Her usual arrived. Before she tucked in, she said, “Because I killed the Windwalker already. Which I told you I could do, but you wouldn’t believe. Yesterday. With help from the Aelen Kofer.”
Iron Eyes and her human companions stared. They gaped. And they refused to believe.
“It took almost every weapon I had but I did do it in, Double Great. Copper is bringing its soul egg. Kharoulke the Windwalker is no more. And all the Night is in a panic and disarray.”
They still would not believe. They did not want to believe. “Yes. Me. A mere girl. I did it.” Her glare dared any of them to claim they had softened the Windwalker up. She had done the heavy lifting from the beginning.
Cloven Februaren said, “She’s right about the Night. I’ve never seen it as agitated as it is now.”
The Bastard nodded silent agreement.
Iron Eyes said, “We’ll wait on Copper and the ascendant. We’ll see what they have to say.”
Heris was profoundly irked but knew that was the best she could expect. For now.
42. Brothe: Commander of the Righteous
A servant rolled Paludan Bruglioni onto the flagstone patio. The Commander of the Righteous was sharing a morning meal with staff and liaison officers from the Imperial forces of southern Firaldia. Their commander, Prince Manfred Otho of Alamedinne, had refused to dine with a hired sword. The Empress, either drunk or drugged, brooded over the scene from a high seat a short distance away. Her presence dared the southern nobility to try disdaining her desires when it came to naming the Commander of the Righteous master of all Imperial forces south of Brothe.
There would be conflicts if the campaign lasted. The Ege family had little love for Manfred Otho and his father, Manfred Ludovico, both of whom had been conspicuously absent from Imperial ranks during the Calziran Crusade. The southerners could just barely tolerate being ruled by an Ege woman. Having to take orders from a base-born mercenary lay at the frontier of too huge an indignity. Only the prospect of booty kept mutiny from raising its ugly head.
A feeble prospect, plunder.
Agents of the Patriarch were around, whispering. Telling the truth, in fact. Only estates and properties associated with the Benedocto would be given over to sack. The Benedocto were not rich. The Benedocto still owed bribe money from the election of their last Patriarch, Sublime V.
The smarter southerners, though disgruntled, understood that they were in no position to enforce their preferences. The Grand Duke, now with six thousand men, was scarcely forty miles north of Brothe. Admiral fon Tyre was almost as near, though still beyond the Monte Sismonda. He commanded another twenty-two hundred men. Both men would enforce the will of the Empress if the Commander of the Righteous could not do so himself. The Commander’s reliable force now numbered thirteen hundred. With all those falcons that had won the battle in the Shades. Plus several lesser engagements since.
Paludan rolled into place beside Hecht. Hecht was not quite startled. He had heard the wheels on stone. “Good morning, sir,” he said.
“Good morning. I’ll only take a minute. Or two. First, to thank you for the care you took to avoid damaging the vineyards yesterday.”
“Thank you for your appreciation. I get some friction but my policy is to minimize damage to friends.”
Yesterday had seen a strong cavalry probe come south from Brothe. Titus Consent’s friends in the city had sent warnings. Hecht’s own horsemen had led that force into an ambush where falcons had torn them apart. Southerners had been there to observe. Their reaction had been to whine about all the horses left unfit for capture once the falcons did their job. Plus, there had been few prisoners to ransom.
Hecht asked, “And your other matter?”
“I don’t know what reports you’ve had. I hear that Brothe is coming apart. The City Regiment can’t keep the peace anymore. And Serenity keeps giving stranger and more draconian orders.”
“That’s what I hear. He’s become completely erratic since somebody killed his mistress and wrecked his city house.” Hecht had the facts of those events from Lila.
“It could be wishful thinking but my contacts say that neither the City Regiment nor the militia would fight much if you got inside the wall.”
Hecht looked Paludan in the eye for several seconds. Then, “Rivademar. This meeting is suspended. I’ll let you know when we’ll resume. Titus, stay. The rest of you, go enjoy the morning. Or get some work done. Whatever moves you.”
Titus moved aroun
d the table, settled beside Hecht. The rest of the gathering moved away. Consent asked, “Do we need a quiet room?”
Paludan said, “Unfortunately, the only one here is damaged.”
Hecht said, “We managed an ambush yesterday.”
Consent nodded. “So we did. By misdirection. Which works as long as Serenity’s Collegium friends refuse to be found at the point of the spear.”
Hecht asked Bruglioni, “Do you know somebody inside willing to work with us?”
“I expect we all do, in a manner of speaking. In this case, though, I’m talking about somebody involved with the Arniena. Somebody Rogoz Sayag knows.”
Hecht nodded, not surprised. Brothen politics being Brothen politics, this was inevitable. But he had not expected it so soon.
Paludan said, “War isn’t good for business. Unless it’s happening somewhere else and we’re selling them the means to butcher one another. If this lasts all summer the cost will become insupportable. Brothe has ten thousand men closing in. Since the Shades Serenity can’t find fighters willing to defend him. Only Pinkus Ghort offers much hope. And he hasn’t reached Brothe yet. The Grand Duke keeps slowing him down.”
Hecht believed Hilandle was either much more clever than anyone credited, or much luckier. He had been doing everything almost exactly right since his advent in Firaldia.
Hecht said, “So if I get there first, get inside, and stun Serenity’s friends …”
“If you got inside suddenly, and seized several gates, you could probably give your Empress what she wants and, maybe, the rest of us the relief we’re looking for.”
“We’re sitting here talking about it in the wide open. They’ll know we’re coming.”
“Maybe not. Although we don’t have a functional quiet room, we aren’t unprotected. If we keep our wards in place and up to strength Serenity can’t get more than snippets of what we’re planning. Go after a gate? Pretty obvious, isn’t it? Don’t need to be a military genius or have spies riding the Commander’s shoulder to anticipate that. But which gate? And can Serenity trust all the men he puts in charge?”
